Two Dutch soldiers became casualty today (April 18) to a road side attack in the Afghan province of Uruzgan. Two more soldiers were wounded, one of them critically. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
One of the killed soldiers is Dennis van Uhm. Van Uhm is the son of Peter van Uhm.
People in the USA will of course not know who Peter Van Uhm is but since yesterday he's the new chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Netherlands. In effect, he's the Dutch counterpart to our own Joint Chief, Michael Mullen.
Today his son is killed in the line of duty. The contrast between the joy of being appointed his nation's top soldier and taking over in a pomp and circumstance ceremony before parliament, is now merely a day later drowned out in sorrow for the death of his son.
A total of 16 Dutch troops have now died in Afghanistan. Friday's attack is not thought to have specifically targeted the new military commander, although the Taliban claims otherwise. They probably just were "lucky".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
http://edition.cnn.com/...
More victim's of Bush's folly. In stead of going after the real enemy (Al Qaida) he decided to go after Iraq. Six years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the hard-line Taliban regime, hostilities show little sign of easing. Suicide attacks in Afghanistan spiked last year, with the Taliban launching more than 140 such missions -- the highest number since the insurgency began after 2001. The fighting is most intense in the south of the country. But as the Bush administration's hard nose approach to international politics allienated many of our traditional allies, Afghanistan is going the way of Iraq...